It occurs to me…

From my friend Steve Kinney:

“It is indeed better to give than receive, but before we can give, we have to receive.”

Easy to forget that absent receipt we got nothin’.  We arrive on and depart this mortal coil empty handed, which strongly suggests that the focus should be on what we receive, not what we have; not on what we got, but how we got it, from whom.  Of course, what can be the uncomfortable aspect of that line of thinking is that (we get circular here) it is easy to forget that absent receipt, we got nothin’.  In short: “In everything give thanks.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Another of those accidental photos, though this one I can identify as the fabric on a chair i regularly sit at in my room at home. I ran across the quote recently and haven’t been able to convince myself otherwise.

Photo taken some years back at an exhibit at the Houston Museum of Art, can’t recall the artist’s name. It seemed to fit the Wendell Berry quote I recently ran across.

Photo taken of the Lamar Street Bridge on a recent run.

Three-word life philosophies — pick one:

1. Wow, that sucked!
2. Well, lookee here!
3. Okay, what’s next!

Howard Thurman writes in today’s offering about singing new songs. He notes:

“The old song of my spirit has wearied itself out. It has long ago been learned by heart so that now it repeats itself over and over, bringing no added joy to my days or lift to my spirit. It is a good song, measured to a rhythm to which I am bound by ties of habit and timidity of mind. the words belong to old experiences which once sprang fresh as water from a mountain crevice fed by melting snows.”

That is, things get familiar and stale. But Thurman will of course have none of that.

“I will sing a new song. As difficult as it is, I must learn the new song that is capable of meeting the new need. I must fashion new words born out of all the new growth in my life…. I must prepare new melodies that have never been mine before…. Thus, I may rejoice with each new day and delight my spirit in each fresh unfolding.”

What new tune is out there today?

Another “accident” photo found in my phone camera. Text from a recent podcast.

Fire Flowers

Howard Thurman writes in Meditations of the Heart of the fire flower.  Doing a little research, the fire flower is, in some areas, one of the plants that tend to follow a burn-off, an early bloomer in a forest area decimated by fire.  “To spring into life with color and freshness where fire has burned and heat has laid waste – this is the quality and grace of the fire flower.”  But Thurman is not a botanist.  His interest in the fire flower relates to people, and he calls out those  “fire flowers” in humanity, those “men and women who seem always to have the right word, the saving gesture, the simple deed that makes the barren place beautiful, the burned-over area to spring into life with color and freshness.” 

We all know those people.  We’ve had them bloom in our lives – perhaps not perennially, not even annually, perhaps just from time to time, perhaps they bloomed for us just once.  The offer of help from a stranger, the smile of a child in the midst of a long day, a note from a friend, a stranger letting you into the seemingly endless line of traffic.  Perhaps some of us even are fire flowers, at least sometimes, in the lives of others.  Even cacti bloom.

Thurman closes on this:

“What a gift of God, what a grace of life to be blessed with the magic of the fire flower!”

Nudged this morning back to Rumi’s The Guest House as translated by Coleman Barks, and drawn to the opening lines:

“This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.”

Indeed: “Every morning a new arrival.”

Viewed in that light, it seems a little silly to think I can rely blindly on experience with the former arrivals, yesterday’s departures. 

The seventeen syllables did not arrive today, so I am substituting this text imposed on a photo taken on a bridge leading into downtown Portland – back when I traveled.